


Easier

by Medie



Category: Bourne (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:59:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being someone else is the easy part; it's Nicky she's having trouble facing in the mirror.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Easier

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Angelsgracie for the emergency beta.
> 
> Written for Kirsten Sea

 

 

At first, Nicky panics. Sitting on a bus, headed to nowhere specific, with no plan and no idea how to make one, she thinks she deserves a chance to panic. She hasn't been out from beneath the Agency's umbrella in years. She's not an operative; she's not even field-rated. 

She can fire a gun, but never at anyone and she doesn't care to try. She needs to get her hands on a weapon, she knows that. If the Agency doesn't come after her, someone probably will. Treadstone was, ultimately, a failure, but for a while it worked. It _really_ worked and she knows most foreign governments would give their eyeteeth for that kind of success. 

Nicky doesn't know much, just bits and pieces of the whole picture, but she knows enough. Enough to make her worth the effort. 

Her fingers itch for a gun, but her stomach twists at the thought of firing one. She knows how. Growing up the only child of a Marine Corps dad, she'd better. She's probably still a passable shot, but it's not the same. A weekend at the range isn't a gun battle in Morocco. 

Nicky closes her eyes. She wishes they'd talked about the war and Vietnam. She'd never pushed him, but now... 

She breathes deep. She can't kill someone. She _can't._ Nicky tries to picture herself standing there, a gun in her hand, pulling the trigger. If she concentrates hard enough, she can almost feel the weight of it and the slight kick as it fires. 

Her imagination fails her. When she looks at her pretend victim all she can imagine is the paper target from the range.

She looks out the window, watching the scenery fly by without really seeing any of it. If she can't kill a pretend person, how the hell can she shoot at a person? 

Nicky doesn't know what to do and there's no Jason Bourne to help her figure it out.

*

They finally stop for gas and a bathroom break. Everyone piles off the bus and into the gas station. It's small, but the bathroom is clean enough. She uses it then goes to the sink to wash her hands. The basin is chipped and worn and Nicky's eyes follow the path of the cracks down into the sink. She stares into the dark hole, watching the water trickle away. 

Dimly, she realizes that she's in shock, or at least close enough to it. Shaking her head, she leans forward to splash water on her face. The cool against her skin is enough to get her brain moving again. Her thoughts tumble together, bumping around in her brain as she tries to put them into a coherent order.

She looks up and catches sight of herself in the mirror. She doesn't look any different. Not even with her haircut and over-tired eyes. Same old Nicky. 

Except not.

She can't see it, yet, but she knows she's different. Nicky takes a breath, wipes her face and looks herself square in the eye. She wonders if this is how Jason felt in the beginning. The certainty that there's no safe corner. No one watching your back. Just the naked exposure of the other side. 

Sighing, Nicky turns away from the window. It doesn't matter if the Agency's looking for her or not. She can't go back. She has to keep moving. 

"You can do this," she tells herself. "You don't need to be field rated to pull this off." And she doesn't. She's helped them, been the voice on the other end of the line, putting assets where they needed them. "You just have to imagine." 

A shaky grin tugs at her lips. "Just imagine you're him." 

Opening the bathroom door, she looks at the store full of her fellow passengers. Tourists and locals alike. 

Any of which could be an operative following her.

Nicky threads her way through the aisles, plucking supplies with studied casualness. At least she hopes it is, she fights the instinct to look and keeps moving. Just like shoplifting back home. She smiles at a child running past her feet and uses the distraction to slip her prizes into a bag.

She's out the door before anyone can call after her.

Easy.

She's half a mile away before her hands stop shaking. 

*

It's not easy, but she gets back to Madrid on her own. The embassy is out, along with any possible assets. 

And her apartment.

She sighs. It wasn't much and she kept little in it, but it was hers. She liked Madrid. Soaked up the warmth of the place and the people, smoothing the jagged edges the job cut into her. She doesn't want to leave but she can't stay. 

It's silly. After all that they've taken from her, that's the thing she hates them for. 

*

She finds an internet cafe. It doesn't take her long to find the chat room she needs. Identity theft is a billion dollar black market business. They've been monitoring it long enough that she knows who to go to and fast.

By the time she leaves Madrid, flying business class, she's Eleanor Russell, wife of Ian Russell of Fort Lauderdale. 

"Should've stayed away from the porn, Ian," she murmurs. 

Nicky orders herself a drink and goes to the bathroom. She doesn't search the faces of the passengers as she goes. 

She checked the manifest before she boarded. Jason would approve.

*

When she lands, she throws Eleanor Russell away. She's served her purpose. 

*

Nicky ends up in California. She gets a job in a cafe, making up a story about a house fire It takes weeks for her nerves to settle. Every noise makes her jump, every unfamiliar face has her looking twice, and she walks home every night looking over her shoulder. 

She's not sure who she's looking for; Jason or the Agency. 

*

He's alive. Nicky can breathe again. 

*

If only she could sleep. Jason didn't warn her about this part. The hiding is getting easier, she can feel herself settling into all the patterns that keep her alive. The lie becomes her first answer, the truth an inconvenient voice in the back of her head. She's getting used to it. 

Being someone else is the easy part; it's Nicky she's having trouble facing in the mirror. Her conscience catching up with her. She listens to the news and hears the lists of atrocities that Treadstone and Blackbriar can claim credit for. 

Atrocities she had a hand in.

She doesn't sleep after that. Obsessed with the news, Nicky devours everything she can find. Some of the hearing testimony looks familiar, she watches them talk and remembers the nights in question. Dry facts and figures take on substance and adrenaline in her head. They talk about terminations and she remembers Jason, his face worn and weary, his hands gentle as they stroke her bare shoulders.

She misses him.

*

A month into the hearings, someone follows Nicky home. The panic returns in an instant, clawing its way up her throat until she can't breathe. For a moment, she's back in the alley, grabbing at doors and praying one's unlocked. 

Then she hears a voice and a sob breaks the panic. 

"Nicky."

*

His name is David.

She likes it.

*

He's right. 

 


End file.
